Rectified
Impulse
Sweet Insanity
Night All Day
Death of a Salewoman
PURE
Day Pass
Cycle

Awards

2006 MTV Video Music Awards Best Video Game Score

BAFTA 2005 Best Original Music Award (British Academy Award)

GameSpot 2003 Best Soundtrack of the Year Award

IGN 2004 Best Soundtrack Finalist

G.A.N.G. 2005 Hitman Contracts

G.A.N.G. 2004 Freedom Fighters

G.A.N.G. 2003 Hitman 2

"Who’s to say that Hell has to
sound this way or that way so there can be a lot of freedom involved
when working on these types of scores."

Jesper Kyd

COMPOSER JESPER KYD talks about
taking the musical reigns for the Darksiders franchise with his
score for DARKSIDERS II, its unique challenges, and finding
inspiration for scoring death, hell, and heaven.

Interview by Richard
Buxton

TS - DARKSIDERS II
marks your debut in
the series. How did
you get involved in
the franchise?

JESPER KYD -I was
approached by the team
to come up with some
music ideas for
re-booting the
soundtrack
– the team really
liked my ideas and I
was hired to score the
game.

TS - How long have you
been working on the
music for the game?

JESPER KYD - The
entire process was
about a year.

TS - From the
oppression of FREEDOM
FIGHTERS, to the
exoticism of the
ASSASSIN’S CREED
series, you have been
continually lauded for
your ability to lend a
game’s universe a
sense of authenticity
while simultaneously
maintaining your own
distinctive voice. How
significant is the
world and back-story
of a video game when
deciding to take on
new projects such as
DARKSIDERS II?

JESPER KYD - It’s
really important.
Whether it is a modern
urban environment or a
specific historical
time period – I really
dive into the world
and work on finding
interesting ways to
express these types of
different worlds. It’s
not just about the
story when scoring a
game – it’s also about
taking what’s there in
the game world and
bringing it out to the
surface. I really love
digging deep and
sometimes I bring
things out with music
that do not really fit
at first glance, but
from a gamer’s
perspective it makes
complete sense. For
example, “Flight over
Venice” or “Venice
Rooftops” from
Assassin’s Creed II
might not be the music
you would expect to
play during flight or
running scenes – but
this music is
intertwined with
Ezio’s Theme (“Ezio’s
Family”) and gives a
sense of vulnerability
and realism instead of
making everything
epic-sounding. I never
looked at Ezio as an
epic character, more
of a man who has
endured a profound
loss which gives birth
to a deeply rooted
quest to destroy the
Templars. Throughout
the 3 Ezio Assassin’s
Creed games, I worked
on reminding the
player about his
troubled past; the
emotion or sadness
that the music touches
on reminds the player
of what happened to
him and why Ezio does
what he does. This is
a film scoring
technique which I have
been employing in many
of my scores.

TS - Having composed for two of the world’s most significant game franchises in
HITMAN and ASSASSIN’S CREED, do you find that being able to revisit games
multiple times provides you with greater room for expression?

JESPER KYD - Yes and
no. There is more pressure to re-invent because it makes no sense to have the
same type of score over and over. Yet, it makes it easier since the scores are
always progressing and so I just keep moving things forward while retaining
parts of what has been established; retaining parts that make sense to keep in
order to maintain a signature sound.

TS - How have you approached DARKSIDERS II in regards to the first installment?
Did the music from the first game serve as inspiration for your music in the
second, or was it a case of going in entirely fresh?

JESPER KYD - Vigil and
THQ were very clear that they wanted something new and fresh. In fact, they did
not want it to sound like a traditional fantasy orchestral score.

TS - In the first game, players took control of the character “War”, whereas in
DARKSIDERS II players will take on the role of his brother “Death”. Is there a
specific musical voice that you have given the character?

JESPER KYD - The
Darksiders II score is not a character score such as Assassin’s Creed. The world
of Darksiders II is so extreme, so pushed to the max that we wanted the
different worlds to be the voices of the score. You go from Heaven to Hell and
Earth and everywhere in-between. The contrasts are extreme. The first realm has
thematic elements scored to the character Death, but it’s atypical for the rest
of the game.

TS - Were there any points during the project that you sought inspiration from
outside source material?

JESPER KYD - I studied
Celtic music for the Makers Realm but didn’t listen to any specific music for
inspiration for the score.

TS - Games such as
DARKSIDERS II,
ASSASSIN’S CREED, and
FREEDOM FIGHTERS have
all featured, to
various degrees, open
world mechanics that
are core to the
gameplay and overall
experience. What
challenges and
opportunities does a
system such as this
present as opposed to
a more linear and
scripted one?

JESPER KYD - A linear
scripted game can
benefit from having
things sound more
scripted on the music
side as well – in this
aspect it’s almost
like scoring a movie.
However, open world
games such as
Assassin’s Creed are
very different from
scoring a movie.

TS - How has your
experience scoring
DARKSIDERS II differed
from game projects in
recent years?

JESPER KYD - I was
encouraged to really
push the music for
certain realms in
Darksiders II. One of
the great things about
working in the fantasy
genre is that the
world is not real –
it’s imagined and who
is to say how things
should sound if you
really went to Hell,
for example. Who’s to
say that Hell has to
sound this way or that
way so there can be a
lot of freedom
involved when working
on these types of
scores.